A universal serial bus (USB) connector is well known in the art due to its high expandability and hot swappable capability. USB connector is able to provide a standard and inexpensive way to connect a peripheral device with a computer host. As a result, USB connector has become the foremost selection in the design of connector to be arranged on a peripheral device.
The structure of a conventional USB connector 40 is shown in FIGS. 1a and 1b. Generally the USB connector 40 is arranged on an electronic device 20 serving as a peripheral device and is able to allow a USB socket 30 that is normally arranged on another peripheral device 10 to be plugged in.
Referring to FIGS. 1b and 1c, wherein FIG. 1c is a front view of the USB connector 40 of FIG. 1b. As can be seen from this figure, the USB connector 40 includes a plastic seat 41, four metal contacts 42 and a frame 43, wherein the metal contacts 42 are inset into the plastic seat 41 and the plastic seat 41 is surrounded with the frame 43. Two securing holes 431 are formed on a top surface of the frame 43, and two fastening portions 432 are formed on a bottom surface of the frame 43. The circuit board 21 is further provided with four first perforations 211 and two second perforations 212 for allowing the metal contacts 42 and fastening portions 432 to be inserted therein respectively, in order to secure the USB connector 40 to the circuit board 21 by solder pads.
Please refer to FIGS. 1b and 1d. FIG. 1d is a front view of the USB socket 30 of FIG. 1b. The USB socket 30 is also provided with a plastic seat 31, four metal contacts 32 and a frame 33, wherein the metal contacts 32 are placed onto the plastic seat 31 and the plastic seat 31 is surrounded with the frame 33, and the frame 33 is further provided with two securing pieces 331. It is to be noted that the metal contacts 32 is placed onto the plastic seat 31 in the form of elastic pieces and protrude from a surface of the plastic seat 31 rather than being clung closely to the surface of the plastic seat 31, as shown in FIG. 1d. In this manner, the metal contacts 41 and 31 can be solidly abutted with each other as the USB connector 40 and the USB socket 30 are coupled together.
The constitution of a prior art USB connector has been described in detail as above. However, because the prior art USB connector has to be mounted on a circuit board, solder pads are necessary for securing the prior art USB connector to a circuit board during the manufacturing process of a USB connector. This manufacturing step will additionally burden the electronic device manufacturing process using surface-mounting technique (SMT).
Also, the prior art USB connector is necessary to be electrically engaged with a circuit board through metal contacts, and thus additional space is required on the circuit board. However, such a configuration will transgress the current trend of USB connector development which is focused on a small and thin shape.
More disadvantageously, the metal contacts are used to transmit electric signals between the USB connector and the circuit board. In high speed signal transmission, an incompatibility problem will be generated due to an imperfect impedance matching between the circuit board and metal contacts.